Four Times
by Zeze Writings
Summary: Sakura loved Itachi but sometimes it was just too hard to keep loving him SakuraxItachi


I can still clearly remember my first crush- Uchiha Sasuke. However, I can recall more vividly my first love- Uchiha Itachi. It had been right after Ino declared that we could no longer be friends and that we were love rivals. Heartbroken, I went to find Sasuke to see if he could help me with Ino. When I finally found him, he was with someone else, someone who I knew but only in passing. It was in that moment though, one that felt as if it had lasted a lifetime, that I had fallen for the older Uchiha.

After that, I gave up what now seemed like a silly schoolgirl crush on Sasuke. I knew that if I was seriously going to chase after someone it was going to be Itachi. Discreetly, I collected all the information I could on him. Finally, when I had collected everything I could, I had learned that he was, simply put, a prodigy and that not only I but also several other women in the village were in love with him too.

This was the first time I thought of giving up my love. However, my love ran deep and I couldn't give it up as easily as I had wanted. Since I decided that I wanted to keep perusing him, I also decided to become the best woman in the village. I would learn to become a housewife, get nothing but straight A's, and become an expert ninja. At first, I stumbled and I wanted to give up several times but whenever I pictured him, I would get my strength back and I would start all over again.

The second time I wanted to give up my love was after he became a missing nin. That was another moment forever etched into my memories. I had been at school, rereading the already memorized ninja handbook. Ino came into the classroom, unusually quite, took a seat, sighed, and lost what little color she had left in her face.

Noticing her behavior, I questioned the reason behind it and was surprised to see tears spring up in her eyes. As she was crying, she let the whole class in on the Uchiha clan's fate. At the time though, all I could think of was how to get her to stop talking. There was no way she could be talking about Itachi- not my Itachi.

When the story was over, the other fan girls also started to cry and I ran from the room. I ran straight into the bathroom, feeling like I was about to be sick. How could someone as perfect as him do something as evil as that? That day was the first day I ever skipped class.

Later when I went home, the tears still falling down my cheeks didn't fail to capture my parents concern. Since they didn't know that I had given up on Sasuke, they tried halfheartedly to cheer me up. Saying how Itachi would be caught and punished, how despicable someone like him was, how lucky it was that Sasuke was still alive. However, these attempts didn't help at all. It just made me want to give up my love for Itachi even more.

I can truthfully say that I tried though. I tried not to think about him, I tried to find someone else to fill the void that I felt, but it was simply impossible. Everything I had ever done was for Itachi- my grades, my cooking, my cleaning, and my skills. It never happened though; I was never able to forget about him. Whenever I was at a sleepover or whenever I was questioned about whom I liked, I would give a small, sad smile and whisper that it was a secret. Eventually, people stopped asking and I stopped answering.

The village moved on, people forgot about the Uchiha clan and it turned almost into a ghost story to scare misbehaving children. It also popped up frequently whenever Sasuke was around and unfortunately for me that was often since we were on the same team. By now, Sasuke looked even more like the Itachi I remembered and it reminded me why I worked so hard. I felt that maybe somewhere, somewhere deep down he had his reasons and he wasn't the monster that he was made out to be. And if that were true, I would be waiting- a perfect woman right down to the dot.

Through out the years after that, we would see him or hear about him and those times were the toughest. Now that I could fight and since Sasuke was on my team, it meant that I would be seeing... fighting... him more often than I would like. Finally, when Sasuke left the village in order to seek his revenge, I felt like giving up on my love for a third time.

How could I love someone who brought so much pain to this village? How could I love someone who made me watch my teammate, Sasuke, fall apart in his desire to find his revenge? How?

However, this attempt was no better than the other two. No matter what I did, I couldn't stop loving him. The night Sasuke left, I cried once again for Itachi and once again, I was halfheartedly comforted for missing the wrong Uchiha.

When Naruto also left, I felt some glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe he would become strong enough to bring Sasuke home and save Itachi. However, once again it was a feeble dream. Naruto came back, stronger than ever but he hadn't caught Sasuke.

The following years, after more heartbreak and fights, the fourth and last time I tried to give up my love came. It was truly one of the blackest moments in my life. Jiraiya had just come back from gathering information on Akatsuki, when he informed Tsunade about Itachi's death. I felt as if a part of me died too. After that, I tried with all my heart to forget about him, to move on and find someone else.

However, for me there was no one else. How could anyone else fill the gap in my heart? Especially one that kept widening repeatedly. For the last time I was, halfheartedly, comforted with words about how Sasuke was going come home now and that the _monster_ had been killed.

And for the last time, I decided that I didn't want to give up my love for Itachi.


End file.
